


Got Me Escaping From This Zoo

by EllieMurasaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s06e07 Family Matters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-16
Updated: 2010-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-13 09:39:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Heaven wasn't exactly paradise, so they've tacitly agreed not to get smashed together anymore, and Sam needs to pass out from alcohol poisoning more than Dean does.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Got Me Escaping From This Zoo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waterofthemoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterofthemoon/gifts).



> Title from the Beatles' "Old Brown Shoe" (you know you pick me up from where some try to drag me down).

Sam's three linen closets to the wind and Dean's still staring sadly at his second beer. He'd rather have matched Sam shot for shot, because the past couple years haven't been exactly easy, but heaven wasn't exactly paradise so they've tacitly agreed not to get smashed together anymore, and Sam needs to pass out from alcohol poisoning more than Dean does.

Dean yawns, because drunk or not he's done in. Sam catches him and changes tack from babbling apologies in the general direction of assorted people that R. Samuel Olivaw hadn't tried to save to babbling apologies about not paying enough attention to when Dean isn't a hundred percent. Dean shrugs and pulls Sam down onto the bed with him, because Sam's got to need sleep even more than Dean does and Dean is not letting Sam out of arm's reach.

Dean's not sleeping until Sam does, though. The big-brother instincts don't have an off switch.

And Sam...does not go to sleep.

Dean stuffs Sam with turkey sandwiches and milk. Doesn't work. Dean takes Sam on a ten-mile run. Nothing doing. Dean plays the Black Album, which has a soporific effect on Sam when he's at less than full capacity. No dice. Dean plays _Hey Jude_ side two, which always works, by the end of "Old Brown Shoe" if not the beginning. Dean wakes up six hours later; Sam's curled up on the other side of the king bed, shaking, and says he hasn't slept at all.

Dean practices his massage skills, which relaxes Sam but not far enough, then makes a crack about happy endings, and Sam says please and how the hell is Dean supposed to resist that?

After, Sam looks and Dean feels the happiest they've been in years, and Dean has now seen a wide enough variety of Sam emotions to be confident that there's nothing whatsoever wrong with Sam's soul. Which means the problem's something else.

Sam admits, a few days later, that he's fine with the not sleeping thing. After all, he hasn't had a nightmare in years, and he would really rather not have one about anything that happened after he said yes in Detroit.

Dean rolls his eyes, connections clicking together, and goes to dig through the weapons box until he comes up with the years-old stash of dreamroot. Dean brews the stuff and adds one of Sam's hairs and gulps it down, and he's only been wandering in the dark hoping not to be eaten by a grue for a few minutes when Sam catches up.

Dean wakes before Sam does. Asleep, peaceful, unafraid, Sam's beautiful.


End file.
